


don't wanna cry, but I break that way.

by deadeyed



Series: beyond them is more than memory [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And Bucky back, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Mention of Suicide Attempt, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Original Characters - Freeform, POV Original Character, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve and Natasha are best friends, by an OC, therapy sessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 13:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20760956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadeyed/pseuds/deadeyed
Summary: “I vacuumed my wife.”Bob paused, glancing around the circle of people. He could see the horror on most of the faces, though one or two had that frozen look like they weren’t sure how to react. Part of him wanted them to laugh, because it was stupid really, stupid and ridiculous and if Ruth were here she’d be hiding her scandalised giggling behind her hand right there with him.“I was on autopilot, mostly. All I could think was that the place was a mess and she’d be back soon. It was late, I hadn’t been sleeping. You know how it was in those first days? How unreal everything felt. Well, all I could think about was Ruthie, and how her nice house was looking so shabby. I’d tossed everything in the trash before I even remembered.”





	don't wanna cry, but I break that way.

**Author's Note:**

> So it's been 84 years since I last wrote a fanfic. Livejournal was still the go to place. Therefore this is very unbeta'd because I don't know where to find one. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> When the Endgame trailer dropped and we saw Steve in the meetings I immediately wanted to write about the world picking up the pieces again. But then the actual film happened and I ended up too mad about a lot of things so this was set to the wayside. Now I'm brushing the dust off and posting it. It's most definitely going to be a fix-it series with focus on Steve/Bucky later. 
> 
> Title is from Where's My Love? By SYML Please mind the warnings.

Bob was somehow always the last to know.

Ruth used to joke that he wouldn’t know he was on fire until the brigade came and put him out. In fairness to her, it had taken him weeks to figure out she’d said yes to dating him, and then another two getting her to forgive him for the accidental cold shoulder. She didn’t really mind it, she’d said, it made him weirdly charming. Plus, she’d had fun leaving reminders all the way up to their wedding a year later. He still had some of her notes tucked away in his bedside cabinet, flowery penmanship faded along with the scent of her perfume.

She didn’t say it all that much after New York.

She’d gone with Charlie on a mother-son bonding trip, leaving Bob behind with his chores and three days of blissful summer haze to putter around the yard. He was going to paint the garage that daffodil color she’d always liked, he’d promised. And he’d started it, got two-thirds of the way through before his buddy Nate rolled up in his truck with a bucket of tackle and a cooler of cold beers. He hadn’t thought to bring his phone. Heck, he knew they’d be busy for most of the day anyway. They’d planned to see a show, they’d call him before bed. 

He thinks desperately trying to let someone know their son is dying can kill even the oldest of joke.

Charlie had passed before he’d managed to get in touch. Ruth had been so exhausted by then, her voice hollowed out and tired, like she’d aged eighty years in the span of eight hours. Bob hadn’t even got to say goodbye.

He’d tried to be better after that - he kept his phone on him at all times, though he didn’t hear so well these days and if he forgot to turn the volume up in the morning it’d take a couple of tries. He didn’t talk to many people - all those friends of theirs drifted away after the funeral. The invasion was a city problem, not something small town folk wanted to hear about. Aliens and superheroes were kids stuff, and instead of talking grief they wanted to talk potholes and marital scandals. Bob hadn’t cared much for keeping in touch. He had Ruth, and if sometimes he found himself in the empty bedroom on the first floor - well, there was nobody around to call him out on it.

The house was quiet when he finally surfaced from the basement, leg thumping heavily against the wood steps. He yawned as he shuffled through the door and into the kitchen, afternoon sun beaming through the windows. Ruth had left him a sandwich and a soda on the counter, condensation still glistening on the glass. She must have just gone out - probably to see old Mrs. Miller next door who’d fallen just the week before. She was always good like that. Even after everything, his Ruth was an angel. Smiling, he took the plate and the drink and made his way through to the family room. Usually Ruth made him wash up before he sat down - he was always doing something that included dust or dirt, she said, and it always got all over her nice couch. But he was pretty sure he could eat and run and she’d be none the wiser.

Leaving his sandwich on the coffee table, Bob switched the television on and set to the task of unbuckling his prosthetic. Underneath the hem of his shorts the skin above his knee itched and he let the heavy weight of the leg thump to the floor. The plate he then balanced along his stump, settling back to eat. 

It took him a minute or two to realise the frantic girl on the television wasn’t the usual newscaster and he had to fumble for the remote to get the volume turned up to figure out what she was saying.

_They’re gone, they’re all gone. Oh my God, I’m the only one here. What happened? Someone. Please._

Funny time, Bob thought, for a movie to be shown. Maybe his watch had stopped again. But the panic on the actress’ face wasn’t all that appealing and so he muted her quick and finished his lunch. It was only when he’d moved to put his leg back on he’d noticed the dirt on the carpet. Thick and dusty and making a mess. He must have knocked something over himself downstairs. Swearing, Bob tried to brush it aside but it only stuck further into the pile. Ruth was going to kill him when she got back.

\-----

“I vacuumed my wife.”

Bob paused, glancing around the circle of people. He could see the horror on most of the faces, though one or two had that frozen look like they weren’t sure how to react. Part of him wanted them to laugh, because it was stupid really, stupid and ridiculous and if Ruth were here she’d be hiding her scandalised giggling behind her hand right there with him. 

“I was on autopilot, mostly. All I could think was that the place was a mess and she’d be back soon. It was late, I hadn’t been sleeping. You know how it was in those first days? How unreal everything felt. Well, all I could think about was Ruthie, and how her nice house was looking so shabby. I’d tossed everything in the trash before I even remembered.”

He swallows the lump in his throat, takes a sip of the sludgy coffee in his hands.

“Thirty years she’d been on at me to start cleaning up. Thirty years, and the first time I do I throw her ashes out with the whiskey bottles.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Mike says, leaning forward in his chair, his hands folded over his knees, “I’m sure Ruth would have known that.”

“I keep leaving voicemails for David.” Marie, a pretty young thing sitting to Bob’s right, starts up. “Really mean ones. I wake up in the night and I call him and I yell all these terrible things down the phone at him.”

One of her hands move unconsciously to the swell of her belly, soothing over her dress in an attempt to combat the angry wobble in her voice. “I’m just so mad at him. I’m so mad, and I know it’s not his fault. But I can’t not be mad at him.”

Bob wants to tell her that Ruth was the same when she was pregnant, that she’d rant and rave at him for getting the wrong kind of dish soap. But then he’s pretty sure Marie wouldn’t care about dish soap, not now she’s facing raising a kid with no parents, no fiancée, no friends. Hell, he’s not even sure where she’s staying. A lot of the smaller towns got ransacked the first few months. Not like she could just pop on over to Old Navy for baby supplies, he should check the attic.

“Why us?” She continues, voice wobbling, “Why not some bad person? Like the terrorists on the TV. What did we do to deserve _this_?”

“You didn’t,” Grant cuts in. Bob finds himself glancing over at the man in the corner, hunched shoulders, the clasped hands in front of him. He’s new to the group, but he comes every week, sits and listens and doesn’t talk much. They all know that’s not his real name. They’d seen the wanted posters when the man went AWOL after Sokovia. But by unspoken agreement they let him keep up with the charade. He definitely doesn’t want to be here, but none of them do. Maybe he hopes it might help. Maybe it has something to do with the redhead who drops him off at the door, stern and protective as he shuffles inside. “None of us did.”

“I think,” and it’s El now, with their bright green hair and pierced nose. Bob likes El, even though he doesn’t think it’s mutual. They’d shown up on the first day, daring and angry at the world, ranting and raving and practically spitting bullets. Said they’d chased some thugs off with a baseball bat. Looking at El, that’d probably been quite a sight. Five foot nothing, but ready to tell the world to go fuck itself. Maybe they think because Bob’s an old man he wouldn’t get it, but he went to war. He knows how these things go. “I think it’s just not knowing what we have to do next, when does the shock wear off? When do we get off our asses and move on? Do we keep going?”

“Can we?” Marie sniffs, and Bob watches as Mike shifts in his seat, watch glinting in the light. It’s Grant who speaks though, straightens his shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. 

“We have to.”

\-----

Grant’s there next week, same redhead dropping him off at the door. He looks at the room with distant eyes until Marie wanders in. Funny, how she already looks so much bigger. Like seven days is all that long. Grant is quick to help her though, getting her to her seat and coming back towards the catering table for her drink. Bob shifts a little out of his way, but he’s slow about it. It’s the cold. And the fact that his doctor’s dead. 

“You doing okay?” Grant asks, and Bob makes a rude noise in response, blowing a laborious breath out that makes a smile almost twitch on the other man..

“Leg’s been givin’ me jip. Think it’s the rain. Weather’s been acting real weird lately.”

“Yeah.”

They stand in companionable silence for a moment, Grant dropping a tea bag into a cup of boiling water. Bob waits him out, mostly because he doesn't want to sit down just yet. The meeting’s can get long. And he’ll have to travel back.

“Where’d you serve?”

“Hamburger Hill.”

“Jesus.”

That makes Bob laugh, because he knows who he’s talking to. “Couldn’t be helped. Or well, could’ve. But I made it. Most folks didn’t. Ruth helped me through it all, got me out the other side. Plus, she said at least I wouldn’t step on both her feet next time we danced.”

“She sounds like a real swell woman,” comes the reply, and Bob wants to tell Grant his forties is showing, but then El arrives in a swirl of rage and the moment’s gone.

\-----

It’s a month later when Grant shows up at Bob’s house, the world’s rustiest pickup truck known to man idling on the sidewalk. He’s leaning against it when Bob shoves his head out the window, raises a hand in a salute in response.

“Where’d you steal that from?”

“Borrowed.”

“Use a time machine for it?”

“Hey,” and Grant laughs, shrugs those massive shoulders of his, “Nothing wrong with the classics.”

Bob only hmphs in response, raising an eyebrow at him. “Let yourself in. I’ll be down in a minute.”

\-----

The crib hadn’t been easy to locate, so it’s down to Grant to climb the ladder and pick his way through the boxes and the mothballs. They both stare at it when it’s brought down, the chipped paint and the cobwebs making it look more like a torture device than a cradle.

“You build this?” Grant asks Bob, but there’s no mockery in his voice, so Bob doesn’t feel angry.

“Yep.When Ruthie told me she was pregnant. I had a lot of time on my hands then, busy feeling sorry for myself, y'know? Not adjusting. But oh, when she gave me the news it was like a light went on. I did the whole nursery. Took my damn time with the leg, but it was a real pretty picture when Charlie came along.”

“Did he -- was it the --?”

Nobody quite knows what to call it, and Bob imagines witnessing it first hand would probably be enough to make talking about it even harder. So he takes pity on the other man, shuffling to the fridge to grab two bottles of beer out. 

“No. Before. The Chitauri. That’s what they’re called, right?”

Grant’s hand shakes when he takes the drink, looking like a man who doesn’t quite know whether to bolt or cry. Bob takes a sip of his beer in silence.

“I’m sorr --.”

“Ain’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was.”

“No. You didn’t hurt my boy, same way you didn’t hurt Ruth. You think I don’t know how war’s work? Lost my leg, lost my friends, lost my whole damn family. But I’m not looking at the reason for any of that shit now, got it?”

Grant lifts a hand to the back of his neck, rubs it wearily against the skin there. He looks like he wants to argue, but Bob perfected the look of a man disapproving long ago and he just waits it out. 

“Yeah, okay.”

“Good. Now, I know you know a thing about painting. I’ve got some stuff in the garage you can use. Let’s stop moping and get to it.”

\-----

They throw a party for Marie that weekend. It’s a small affair, hosted in their usual meeting place. El brings cupcakes - “green, because fuck gender reveals” - and Mike cracks the keg to wet the baby’s head. There’s noise and there’s laughter, Marie waddling now between people, and when Grant shows up with gifts and the redhead in tow she pulls the biggest bottle of vodka they’ve ever seen straight out from her purse. The best part is the noise Grant makes when Marie opens her presents and starts cooing over the Captain America onesie, blush halfway to his ears, avoiding the wicked grin of his companion. 

It’s _nice_, is the thing. Bob doesn’t know if he should feel guilty about the fond swell of affection he feels looking round the room, if losing means he shouldn’t get to be happy again.

“So,” Grant says to the room at large, sheepish as all hell, “I have a confession.”

“I knew it was you who broke that chair last week,” Mike pipes up, grin a mile wide and maybe he knows where this is going too.

“No, uh. It’s not that. It’s just that I haven’t really been honest about my identity the past few months. It isn’t fair. Not when I consider you friends.”

His voice is low, a little angry but it’s not directed at them. Marie is the first to speak, leaning forward as far as she can with the bump, holding Grant’s gaze with a steely determination.

“Just say yes to being my baby’s godfather and we’ll forget all about it, _Steve_.”

\-----

Faith is two months old when they have their next meeting. She’s quiet in her pram, gazing with fascination in her eyes as El dangles a strip of ribbon over her head. She’s doing well despite everything. Mike knew a doctor that still lived in Marie’s neighbourhood and the group makes sure to drop in on her as often as possible. El even moved in a couple of weeks ago, baseball bat in tow. It’s good they have each other, it makes Bob think maybe he should reconsider the whole moving closer thing.

Steve hasn’t been around as much, but he’d made sure to let them know that he was still available, there was just something he had to do. They’ve all speculated, of course, but none of them are really prepared for the reality of the situation when it turns up.

Or rather, when Tony Stark strides in to their worn down meeting room and pauses, face pale and hollow. 

“This is depressing, Rogers.”

It’s Natasha who slips past him first, who practically bounces over to the pram and good-naturedly nudges El out of the way. She coos and it should be terrifying - the actual Black Widow fawning over Faith - but it isn’t. Nor is the way she produces a tiny wine bottle from her jacket and hands it to Marie with a knowing grin. 

“Am I seeing this?” Tony continues, eyebrow raised over the top of his glasses, “Is this really happening? Is Nat talking babytalk to something that isn’t sharp and pointy?”

“Her name’s Faith,” Steve replies as he steps inside, nodding at Bob before placing his hand on his back to carefully urge him inside and to the closest chair. “And our godchild, so show some respect.”

“_Jesus_.”

Steve’s looking a little better, Bob thinks, maybe they both are. He doesn’t know much about the situation with the Avengers but he knows that there were very few of them left. Tony Stark had been missing, and now he’s here, grumbling as he sits. Maybe that’s the reason for the difference in his friend’s shoulders when he turns and smiles again.

“Hope you guys don’t mind us bringing a stray.” 

“We couldn’t shake him off,” Natasha adds, but her hand rests on the older man’s knee as she takes a seat beside him, firm as though to prove to herself that this is real.

“I really should have brought Nebula.”

\-----

When Bob takes a fall one rainy day, it’s Tony who comes with Steve to fix up his leg. His prosthesis had worn away at the bottom and without many specialists nearby he hadn’t known what else to do. Now he has a goddamn certified genius talking about metals in front of him and a Super Soldier at his side.

“Don’t start,” he warns, when he feels Steve shift and square his shoulders, “I’m not leaving this house.”

“You shouldn’t be here by yourself,” Steve replies, Captain America voice in full effect. Oh, Bob is so going to give him shit for this when his head stops ringing. 

“I’ve lived in this damn house since I was twenty. I’m not leaving it. Me and Ruth, we built this place together. We lived here and we loved here and we raised our son here. It’s all I have left of them.”

He can feel his eyes watering, has to place a hand over his face to calm himself down. Some days are better than others, but some days the sorrow threatens to wash everything away. It should have been him. _It should have been him._

\-----

He gets a new leg the next week, along with a very aggressive helper robot that keeps dropping his slippers and tearing the newspaper. Bob laughs so hard he ends up crying.

\-----

“I lost someone I loved.”

Steve’s voice is careful, poised, but it doesn’t hide the way his knuckles have gone white around the mug he’s holding. It’s been over two years and Bob thinks this is maybe the very first time they’ve heard him talk about _himself_ in less than abstracts. The whole room pauses like a held breath.

“I keep losing --.” A break, a shake of his head, “Bucky was _everything_ to me. He was. He was the one person in the whole wide world who knew me through and through. He was the only one who still saw where I came from when they looked at me. That skinny fuckin’ kid who got the shit kicked out of him just because he couldn’t sit back. He knew exactly what I was going to do before I ever did it. Stevie’s Bullshit Detector, that’s what he called it. And he still followed me anyway, because that’s who he was. The good guy. My _best_ guy.”

Stark has stiffened a little, and while Natasha hasn’t reacted he thinks she’s listening a lot more closely now. 

“I don’t know how many times I’ve had Bucky slip through my fingers, is the thing. No matter what, I never get to keep him. Sometimes I wonder if it’s some big cosmic joke, or if God just hates me. Catholic guilt,” At this, Steve smiles a little, “Bucky always said that was bullshit. But maybe I _should_ feel guilty. Because even back then I didn’t stop to think about how every time _I_ ran into danger, _Bucky_ would follow.”

“‘Til the end of the line, that’s what he said. But I should never have asked that of him.”

\-----

Mike moved in the next spring, bandages hiding the scars on his wrists and a hollow look in his eyes. He hadn’t wanted to die, he’d told them after, he just hadn’t wanted to live either. Losing his husband, his kid, it had been too much. No matter what good he did in this brave new world, it didn’t make a single fucking difference. They were still gone. And that wound would never heal.

Bob had given him Charlie’s room almost immediately, had hovered and hovered until Mike had snapped. They’d argued, they’d laughed, they’d cried. And life kept going. Between the two of them they cleared out his old neighbour’s house for Marie and Faith. El wanted to stay in the city, but Steve’s bike made them getting out to the sticks much easier than the other way round. It worked out. The coffee was better at Bob’s house anyway.

\-----

Faith is playing in the space between their yards when the sleek black car pulls up outside Bob’s house. He glances at Marie over their shared patio table then lifts a hand as a familiar blonde head steps out from the back.

“No pickup truck this time?”

“Nah, Tony already took it apart for scraps. Told me he was _saving_ me.”

“Does he have Morgan with him?” Marie interrupts, craning her neck as if she can peer through the tinted windows. Maybe she can, Bob wouldn’t be surprised. She’s a tenacious woman. And apparently broody. 

“She’s with Pepper. That’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about. Tony won’t ask himself, but can you check up on them both for us? We’re going away for a little while. Natasha too.”

“What? Where?” 

Faith looks up at the concern in her mother's voice, toy soldier abandoned in the dirt as she comes over. Steve dutifully ruffles her hair with a massive hand, still smiling even though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Bob thinks he knows where this is going, that Steve has never quite been able to step off the path. He just doesn’t want them to worry. As if they knew how not to these days.

“We think we know a way.”

A pause, an inhale, blue eyes glancing at the sky above them. 

“We think we can bring them _back_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/kindnessglides)


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